Category: News

On Thursday February 15th, 50 Danforth students from grades 9-12 travelled to North York Civic Centre for “Pitch Your Tech! GTHA’s First Tech Conference For Diverse Youth”. The students attended workshops run by diverse Canadian founders and innovators in artificial intelligence, animation, game design, app development, computer science, marketing, and financial literacy. Smart home devices and VR goggles were available to try out between sessions. CBC’s Dwight Drummond was also there for a live interview of presenter Quincy Kelman, Director of Marketing at Walt Disney Studios Canada. A special mention goes out to three of our Danforth students, Menna Abdella, Sultan Emaish, and Aswin Visva who were selected to pitch their ideas. Overall, it was a fun and inspiring day!

February is course selection month, when current students will be selecting their courses for next year (students currently in grade 8 will complete course selection at their elementary school).

The Course Fair, being held on Tuesday February 6 during period 3 & 4, will offer students the opportunity to explore course offerings. Course selection will open on myBlueprint after the course fair, up until the due date of Friday March 2, 2018. Assistance in completing online course selection will be available in some classes, and through teachers, the library and guidance. A computer lab (B2) will be open at lunch between February 20 and March 2 to assist students.

Once students submit, no changes can be made (so be sure to review your choices before clicking submit!). Upon submission you will be instructed to print a one-page summary that will need to be signed by a parent/guardian and handed in to your homeform teacher any time up to and including Monday March 5.

To assist in your planning, these documents were provided to students during the course selection assembly and are available in guidance:

Course Selection Sheet – Contains instructions along with all of the course offerings for grades 10-12 for the 2018-2019 school year.

Prerequisites 2018 – Contains a listing of prerequisite courses (courses that must be completed prior to the start of a class) for the 2018-2019 school year.

Students in Mr. Jackson’s and Mr. Weight’s engineering design classes participated in the annual hot air balloon contest on January 16th in the gymnasium.

This year the winning balloon remained in the air for almost 90 seconds. Congratulations to Sajini (captain), Matthew, Neha and Mikhail for this remarkable achievement. Pictured below is the winning team.

Up next is the cardboard car contest that will be on display at the annual Science and Technology Fair on February 27th in the school’s cafeteria.

On Wed. Dec. 13, 2017, Andrea spent the day at the University of Toronto to learn about science-based innovation led by Creative Destruction Lab. Andrea said the following: “The lab was a really great experience that you should definitely share with students in the future. I believe they are hosting more opportunities in February, April, and June that are all still open to application. The morning was in my opinion the most interesting as we got to sit in on one-on-one meetings between investors/CDL mentors and startups. I learned a lot about the more unconventional strategies and ideas that startups use to grow their business. These include things like marketing products not only to big buyers who will install the product, but to consumers who want that product installed instead of it being invisible; as well as how a company builds up their brand. In the afternoon we watched the mentors collectively discuss the objectives that each of the startups should be having. This section was more technical and in my opinion less interesting. However, it was really neat learning about all the different startups and ideas that are flowing in that space and I’d highly recommend it to anyone who is willing to commit the time. It is a very long and tiring day but I think it’s worth it.”

Elysia and Oakley are this year’s Danforth champions in the McMaster Physics contest. The contest is written in pairs and they got an incredible 90% in this very challenge set of questions and did it in only 15 minutes. This performance may also be worthy of an award form McMaster. We are waiting for the final results.

Our Grade 11 physics students also participated and three of our teams scored excellent results. They are Ananya and Emma, Martha and Fariha and Hannah and Evan.

Students in Mr. Weight’s grade 9/10 science class had the challenge of separating a 3 part mixture of salt, sand and iron. Each group had a 24 gram sample and were required to separate the three substances based on the physical properties of each. Pictured here are Adam and Stephan (top) and Michael (bottom). The winning team of Chance and Anthony recovered 75% of the original sample. Well done everybody!

Students the grade nine MaST drama class attended a performance of “My Name is Asher Lev” adapted by Aaron Posner from the novel by Chaim Potok. The class additionally participated in three workshop sessions facilitated by two wonderful artist-educators from Studio 180, focusing on themes from the play: family, tradition, culture, faith, honesty and the search for identity.

During the workshops, in addition to a number of lively discussions, the student actors were challenged to take a stand on a continuum of ideas, respond in character, and role play to justify a variety of different viewpoints. Using the techniques of improvisation, hot seating, tableaux and mime, participants explored realistic and abstract expressions of the themes and concepts in the play.

At the end of the sessions, the guest artists praised all of the students for their collectively strong active participation and collaboration, their willingness to take risks onstage and for the level of commitment and care paid to each activity they undertook. MaST Drama students your efforts continue to make DCTI proud!

Join the province-wide conversation about how best to improve Ontario’s approaches to classroom assessments, large-scale provincial assessments including Education Quality and Accountability Office (EQAO) assessments, and Ontario’s participation in pan-Canadian and international assessment programs.

Your feedback will help inform a report to be submitted by Spring 2018 to the Premier and Minister of Education providing actionable advice for student assessments in Ontario.

Danforth Collegiate and Technical Institute would like to invite all parents of Grade 8 students interested in attending our school next year to our annual Information Night this coming Wednesday December 6, 2017.

There will be coffee, tea and snacks prepared by our hospitality students in the front foyer starting at 6:30 pm. School departments will also have displays and staff to answer questions prior to the start of our official program at 7:15 in the auditorium.

Following the auditorium presentation parents will be invited to attend a series of guided tours aimed at giving prospective students and their families a chance to see some of the incredible programs and facilities at DCTI.